


boys, Falling

by icanexplain



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: 5 Things, 5 plus 1, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, I might add more as we go who knows, Injury, M/M, Major Character Injury, Secret Relationship, doesnt really have an overarching plot I’m sorry, i just wanted to write 5 plus 1, like needs a prosthetic level
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-05-10 07:20:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14732444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icanexplain/pseuds/icanexplain
Summary: “I’m good, it’s good,” he rushed to comfort them. He quickly glanced at the dagger and swallowed thickly at the dark patch oozing from his side.It was not good. It hurt like a bitch.Or five times the comms were off, and one time they were on, in that order, and five times Lance and Keith carried each other and one time they didn’t, not in that order.(ft. a secret relationship, too many damn emotions, and an actual arc for Hunk)





	1. 1.1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao guess whos procrastinating from their exams!! that’s right it’s me  
> this idea has been in brain for like,, a month? and I started a writing it a couple days ago and it just all came out and here we are now  
> if anyone here follows tnns, I SWEAR IM WRITING MORE. I have the next few chapters planned out, and I’ve started writing the next one,, but I keep getting stuck idk why. In like 3 weeks I’ve finished school tho (finally) and then I’ll be able to write more hopefully so I’ll try and beat this weird fic-specific writer block soon hnnnn sorry  
> anyway! on with the angst ;)
> 
> **warnings for canon-typical violence and descriptions of injury/aftermath of injury (idk man)**

“How long left, Pidge?”

“I’m still at 54%, Shiro.”

Lance cursed under his breath. This intel mission seemed easy until Pidge was forced to lock herself into the galra base’s control room, leaving the other four paladins to protect her from the outside. Each of them had a section- Lance had the east, Hunk the south, Shiro the west and Keith the north. Well, Lance didn’t really know which way the compass directions really went here; he was just guessing.

“Can you at least tell us how many more of these sentries there are?” Hunk asked. “Seriously, they never seem to end!”

“Uhh, yeah, just a sec.” Lance heard clicking behind the standard battle noises of the comms. “Ok, Keith’s almost cleared out his area, Shiro’s got loads still for some reason, Lance doesn’t have any more except the ones he can see, and Hunk, you’ve got another group of 10 and then you’re done. Oh Keith, watch out, a couple of sentries at the back have bombs.”

“Thanks,” Keith grunted out in response. Lance repeated to himself that he would easily handle it, he was _Keith,_ he’d be _fine, no use in worrying, better focus on that sentry in his peripheral-_

Soon after Pidge’s latest update- 61%- the sentry got near enough to Lance to stab him with a dagger. He shot it immediately.

“Fuck!” When did these things even get daggers? Where did they keep them?

“Lance?” Four worried voices spoke directly into his ear.

“I’m good, it’s good,” he rushed to comfort them. He quickly glanced at the dagger and swallowed thickly at the dark patch oozing from his side.

It was not good. It hurt like a bitch.

He still managed to shoot three of the remaining ten sentries in quick succession though.

“What happened?” This was Keith. Of course it was Keith. _Fuck_.

“Nothing, nothing,” Lance stifled a pained gasp when he turned to shoot a sentry approaching his left side- the side with the dagger in it. “Just got nicked by, um, something.” He shot another, clean through the head. Five left.

“Lance...” Hunk was using his ‘tell me the truth or you’ll regret it, remember I’m genuinely doing this for your own good’ voice, and that was somehow harder to resist than Keith’s worried tone.

“It’s fine!” He insisted, shooting another sentry. “Pidge, how many left in my sector?”

“Four. Lance, we know you don’t like to-”

This time when Lance jumped sideways to dodge a bullet he wasn’t quick enough to block the pain-to-noise translator in his mouth.

“Fffffffffuck-”

“That does not sound like nothing.” Among Shiro’s many skills was the ability to sound disappointed, worried and stern all at once, in six words.

“I’m almost done-”

Keith interrupted. “Any more in mine, Pidge?”

After a second- “No. I’m at 73%, guys.”

“Lance, I’m coming to you.”

“I’m fine! Honestly! I’ve only got one left now!”

“Actually, I can see three.” Pidge said in that way she does when she knows she’s right. Which is often.

“Not anymore.” Lance replied smugly, shooting two sentries in the opening he’d created.

“I’m still coming, to make sure you’re actually fine.”

Lance rolled his eyes. Keith could be so stubborn.

He shot the last sentry through its chest.

But then again, Lance was really only getting annoyed because he knew Keith would see what he was hiding and get angry that he’d played it off, even if it hadn’t really worked. And Lance knew he’d only get mad because he cared. He also knew that they both knew that Lance had only been hiding it because he didn’t want to bother anyone else with his problems, which Keith often told him to do since he wasn’t actually bothering anyone, they’d much rather he told them stuff if he was potentially dying, like in this situation-

“I’m done, Keith.” He needed to stop psychoanalysing himself. Carefully, he leant against the wall behind him and slid to floor, breathing out silent _ow_ s as the dagger jostled. In a flash, his bayard disappeared.

“And I’m setting up a private channel, asshole.” Pidge snickered despite the situation.

“Oh, come on! Is this really necessary?” Lance threw his arms in the air even though he knew nobody could see him.

Big mistake. He hissed in pain.

After a beat of silence, Keith said simply, “Yes.” The Altean symbol for a private channel appeared on Lance’s visor.

“Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck _fuck fuck_ -”

Lance let himself breathe the deep, pained breaths he’d been holding back so as to not to panic his friends. For the first time, he properly looked at the wound.

“Shit, Keith, _shit_.”

“What happened?” Lance could tell he was running. His voice easily betrayed his true feelings of intense worry, now with an added hint of panic.

“Well, uh, somehow one of the sentries had a dagger-”

“Are you serious.”

“-and I may be a little stabbed right now. Shit, this hurts like hell.”

He heard Keith slowly inhale, then exhale shakily. “I’m almost to you. Is it still in you?”

“Uh. Yeah. Is that bad?” He held himself back from making an inappropriate joke. _Where did that come from, this was a serious situation!_

“Hopefully not.” _What the fuck was that meant to mean?_ Lance thought. Always so cryptic.

He saw Keith burst through the door at the other end of the corridor just as he thought this. He didn’t literally burst through, but Lance thought it would have looked cool.

“Hey, babe.”

Keith collapsed beside his boyfriend, choosing to ignore him in favour of examining the dagger.

“Fuck, this is in quite deep.”

“That’s what she said!” Lance giggled, almost drunkenly.

Keith stared at him. Lance stared back. “You’re so pretty...”

Pink slowly bloomed over Keith’s face. Shaking his head, he turned back to the dagger, seeming to consider something. He must have come to a decision, as he proceeded to press a button at the base of his helmet.

“Pidge? Yeah, I’m with him, he’s alive. Of course he was playing it down, he’s been stabbed.” Keith winced at whatever reaction this got him. “I know! I need you to analyse this real quick.” He held out his wrist to the dagger, a small, blue scanner travelling down the wound. “Thanks. Shiro, could you ask Coran for a pod? He’s definitely gonna need it, this dumbass. Thanks. I’m gonna turn off comms now.” Before anyone could answer, he clicked the button again.

He sighed loudly, and looked down at Lance, who smiled giddily in return. A flurry of emotions passed over Keith’s face, settling onto a strange mix of frustration and affection. Slowly, he leant down to leave a chaste kiss on Lance’s lips.

“You’re the best dumbass. I love you, ok?” He mumbled against his boyfriend’s mouth. Pulling away, Keith noticed how Lance’s strange dazedness seemed to be wearing off. He stared up at Keith, lips slightly parted, and blinked quickly three times.

“Fuck, what the fuck? What just happened?”

Keith frowned.

“You were stabbed, I’m-”

“No, no, no, I know that! I swear I just got like, drunk, what the fuck.” Lance then looked down at his wound and inhaled too fast. “Shit, shit, shiiiiiiit...”

“Uh, ok, I think either your brain responded to the pain by making you high on endorphins or some shit, or the dagger is poisoned. Hopefully the first.”

Lance stared at him apprehensively. “Yeah, hopefully the first.”

Just then something beeped on Keith’s helmet. Keith’s eyes darted to the flashing purple dot, and he rushed to click the button under his helmet.

“Shiro?”

Lance stared at Keith, trying to work out what he was hearing.

_“Coran’s almost got a pod ready, can you take Lance to the castle in the Red Lion?”_

“Yeah, of course. Pidge found anything?”

_“Uh, well... yeah. She thinks the dagger is poisoned.”_

“Fuck, I thought so. Shit.”

_“Yeah, you’d better be quick. She’s at 87% now, and Hunk’s helping me with these sentries. She’s sent you the path to the Red Lion, by the way. And she said she’s continuing to analyse the data you sent. Good luck.”_

Keith swallowed. “Thanks.” He turned his comms off again.

Lance looked at him with a pained expression. “It’s poisoned, isn’t it.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yep,” Keith answered anyway. “Which means I have to take it out.”

“Oh _hell_ no!” Panic filled Lance’s eyes, a tsunami in an ocean.

Keith clenched his jaw. “I’m sorry, there’s no other option.”

As Lance balled his right hand into a fist, an idea struck Keith. He carefully put one hand on the dagger, trying to ignore how Lance scrunched his face up in preparation.

Then, without warning, he leant forwards and started kissing his boyfriend, almost desperately. If the gasp that escaped Lance’s lips was anything to go by, that was the last thing he was expecting. Just as Keith swiped his tongue along Lance’s lower lip, he pulled out the dagger using the hand he’d already placed on the hilt.

Instead of moaning into the kiss, Lance screamed. High, loud, and piercing right through Keith’s heart. A single drop of salty water fell down Keith’s face as he leant away to let Lance breathe.

“That,” Lance panted, possibly from both the kiss and the pain, “was the worst thing I’ve ever felt, but also, you’re a genius and I love you because it was so much better than I thought it would be.”

“Thanks?” Keith replied, slipping the dagger into a special storage pocket in his suit. “Now, lets get you to Red.”

“Keith, babe, there’s no way I can walk like this.”

Keith simply shrugged, bent down, and picked Lance up bridal style. He made a small, embarrassing _eep_ noise.

“Now, I’m not going to lie and say I haven’t fantasised about you doing this,” Lance said as Keith started following the map Pidge had sent to him. “But it was definitely less painful in my dreams.”

Keith rolled his eyes, but he still blushed furiously when Lance wound his arms around his neck.

Too soon, though, Lance’s breathing became more laboured and his arms started loosening. When Keith turned a corner, he completely stopped breathing for about ten seconds. Keith frowned, worried, down at him.

“You ok? Tell the truth.” He added quickly.

Lance shut his eyes. “Not. Good.” He opened them again. “Everything hurts.” He did a strange cough-swallow combo, and his head lolled back a bit.

“Fuck. We’re almost there, ok? Hold on.” Keith sped up, despite all his muscles screaming out at him. Lance just mumbled in response, eyes already slipping shut.

“Lance, babe, come on, _please_ -” He cut himself off when a dot flashed on his visor, using the voice control in the suits to open the comms link.

“Keith? We’re all done here, we’re coming too. How are you doing?”

“Fuck, Shiro, not good. Lance is almost unconscious, and I don’t know if I can run any faster-”

“Take a left now!” Pidge cut in. Keith did, and saw two doors open themselves in front of him, revealing the lions beyond them.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you, oh my god Pidge thank you-”

“You’re welcome, shut up and run!”

Keith did as he was told. He heard Hunk muttering to himself how everything will be ok in the background. _Me too,_ he thought. _Me too_.

Red definitely understood Keith’s panic, helping him by turning and bending down so he’d have to run less. He practically jumped into the pilot’s seat, carefully laying Lance across his lap. Red leapt into space before he’d even looked at the controls.

Keith had wanted to kiss Lance to try and keep him awake, but four different video feeds blinked into existence on his dashboard. He tried not to look to disgruntled, which was easier than expected when Lance was potentially dying in his lap.

“What’s going on?” Allura asked, eyes flitting around at all the paladin’s screens. “Why does Lance need a healing pod?”

Keith glanced at Shiro through the video feed.

Shiro got the message. “Lance was stabbed with a poisoned dagger by a sentry. I’m carrying the Blue Lion and Keith’s got Lance in his lion. We have a scan of the dagger-”

“We have the actual dagger too,” Keith interjected. “I put it in my suit.”

“Coran, I’m sending you the scan Keith sent me,” Pidge said, successfully diverting everyone’s attention from Keith. He silently thanked her.

It didn’t last long though. “Keith, how’s Lance doing?” Allura turned her anxious gaze on him again. He swallowed and looked down at Lance.

“He’s, uh, unconscious,” he checked his pulse, “his heart rate’s a bit low,” then he put a finger under Lance’s nose, “and his breathing’s a bit shallow, but he hasn’t lost too much blood.”

This didn’t seem to make Allura feel any better. Nor Hunk, for that matter.

Matters were made worse when Coran said, “I’ve identified the poison, but there’s a problem.”

As the Castle of Lions came into view, Keith asked, “First, what are the effects of the poison? Like, is he going to start throwing up or something...?”

“Thankfully, no. First it’ll make him giddy, then it’ll knock him unconscious and make his breathing and heart rate irregular, with possible muscle spasms. A bit after that it might give him sudden, intense muscle spasms and pain, until eventually...” Coran tailed off, leaving the obvious unsaid. Keith swallowed again.

“What’s the problem?” Pidge sounded as determined as Keith was panicked.

“The problem is we don’t have the antidote on the Castle, and I’d estimate he has about three to six hours.”

Keith’s blood ran cold. Distantly, he heard Hunk shout in distress and Shiro try to calm him down. He stared down at Lance’s calm face and sent a silent prayer to any higher being out there that Lance would live. He didn’t notice they’d entered the hangars until his lion roared at him.

Keith pulled himself back into reality, and pulled Lance up with him, already starting to run down the ramp even though it wasn’t touching the floor. As soon as his feet hit the ground, he sprinted, again. This time towards the med bay. He also didn’t notice Hunk, Pidge and Shiro following him.

Coran and Allura were waiting in the med bay. Lance was placed on a bed, stripped of his armour and plugged into more machines than Keith could count. Though his vision _was_ going a bit weird, after seeing Lance pale and unconscious with dark blood seeping out of his side.

Soon, Hunk and Pidge were helping Coran check things, scan substances, talking in practically another language. It seemed Allura was trying to enter Lance’s mindscape or something- her hands were glowing a faint blue and she had closed her eyes. She was standing the closest to Lance; Keith was leaning against the wall trying not to pass out himself.

He was grounded by a presence to his right. Shiro placed his human hand on Keith’s shoulder, looking at him with a small smile. It wasn’t pitiful, it was just- support. Keith took the support and leant his entire body into Shiro’s side, his arms being a strange combination of crossed and hugging himself.

“I feel helpless.” Keith said quietly, so only his step-brother could hear him. “I want to help, I almost need to help, but... I can’t. I don’t know what they’re on about.”

Shiro put a hand in his younger brother’s hair. “You’ll find a way.”

Then, Pidge approached them.

“This is an update,” she said seriously. “We’ve decided to put Lance in a pod for now, which will hopefully fix up the actual wound. Allura’s using her strange connection and life-force thing to control the pod, I don’t really understand it but she’s basically making sure Lance doesn’t die. In the meantime, me, Hunk and Coran are going to try to design and make an antidote for this thing in less than three hours,” here she ran a hand through her hair, making it even crazier than it already was, “seeing as the only ‘easily accessible’ antidote is at least three wormhole jumps away, and could cost us the actual teludav.”

Keith slid down the wall a little bit.

Shiro pulled him back up.

“Any way we can help?” Keith looked up. Shiro was wearing his determined look, the one that when Keith had tried to imitate it he’d been told he looked more stubborn than determined.

“Yes, actually,” Pidge replied. Keith perked up, turning his gaze back to her. “We don’t know what we might need to make the antidote, it’d be great to have people ready to run around the castle to find us things, to save time.” She smiled. It was stilted.

“Of course.” Shiro said, squeezing Keith. Pidge turned back around to where Hunk was lifting Lance into the pod, ready to collect the data on the poison.

“You ok?” Keith stared at Lance’s face, deciding how to reply to Shiro.

“No,” he ended up saying. “I don’t think I will be until I know he’s ok.”

“Me too, buddy. Me too.”

As they followed Hunk and Pidge down the corridor, Keith couldn’t help but think, _no. Not you too. You don’t get it._

_You’re not in love with him._

He only realised he still had dried up salt on his face once they’d found an antidote and Lance was safely back in the pod.

 

When Lance fell out of the healing pod, he knew he’d fallen into Hunk’s arms because he was immediately enveloped in a soft, warm hug.

“Never do that again, oh my god, we thought you were going to _die_ , dude you have _no idea_ -”

Lance tried to respond, but too much was happening at once. Shiro’s voice, luckily, saved him.

“Alright, guys, give him some space, he just regained all his senses!” He chuckled.

“Sorry,” Hunk mumbled, pulling away from the hug. Lance noticed he was already crying.

“Hey, big guy, I’m ok!” A punch to the (right) side alerted Lance of Pidge’s presence. She also had tears in her eyes.

“Asshole,” she muttered, pulling him in for a hug too.

After receiving more hugs, Lance scanned the room again.

“Where’s Keith?”

Shiro glanced at the door. “Well, he’s been sitting by your pod almost the whole time you were in there, and I finally managed to convince him to actually rest last night, so he’s probably still sleeping.”

“Oh. Ok. Wait, how long was I in there for?” Lance looked to Allura.

Allura looked to the floor. “About three weeks.”

“Three... weeks?” He croaked out.

“You almost _died_.” Pidge whispered, still clutching him in a strange hug, as if he might disappear. “Me, Hunk and Coran had to literally _invent_ an antidote in less than _three hours_ to save you.”

“Woah,” Lance was beyond impressed. “Woah, that’s crazy, what the hell, how are you guys this clever?”

Pidge and Hunk smiled modestly at that. Coran just twirled his moustache proudly.

“They were incredible!” Allura exclaimed, catching Lance’s change in mood. “It was amazing, how fast they were working.” She beamed at the three of them. Shiro ruffled Pidge’s hair.

“Well, if you don’t mind, I’m going to go get changed and have a shower.” He took two shaky steps forward.

“You need any help?” Hunk asked, ready to catch him.

“Nah, I’m good,” to prove this, Lance spun on his heel to shoot them all a smile. “But I am starving so if you could find something for me that’d be great?”

“Oh my god, yeah, of course!” Hunk said, grabbing Pidge and darting towards the kitchen. Lance vaguely heard Pidge’s complaint and the others’ laughter as the door slid shut behind him.

 

He finally saw Keith when the elevator doors opened on the floor with their rooms. When Keith saw him, he audibly gasped and froze to the spot. Lance had to step out, letting the lift doors close behind him, to bring him back into the present.

“Hey, babe.” He held out his arms for a hug and smiled warmly.

Keith, tears already spilling over, collapsed into Lance’s chest and held onto him like there was no tomorrow.

“I was just going to see if you were out yet,” he mumbled into his boyfriend’s neck. “I thought the others would’ve called me.”

“Apparently you barely left my side these three weeks,” Lance said, holding Keith closer. “And you needed the sleep.”

“Fucking Shiro.”

Lance laughed.

“I need to have a shower and get changed, then I’m gonna eat some of Hunk’s space food, I’m starving-”

Keith jolted away. “Fuck, yeah of course, uh, sorry-”

“Don’t be sorry, oh my god- just- um, come with me?” Lance rubbed the back of his neck. Keith raised an eyebrow.

“I need the company.” Returning Lance’s earlier smile, Keith reached out to hold Lance’s hand.

“Anytime.”

 

They talked as Lance had his shower. First about nothing in particular, then about the mission- Keith excitedly explaining how the intel Pidge downloaded contained the routes of important galran supply ships. Allura and Shiro were already cooking up a plan to attack and destroy as many ships as possible, slowing down the galra’s conquer of other planets- which they could convince to join the Voltron Alliance.

In a lull in the conversation, Lance shut off the water. He stared anxiously at a drop of water falling down the wall, thinking something over.

“Lance?”

“Keith, I... I’m sorry, I need to know.”

“Lance? What’s wrong?” He resisted the temptation to stand up. Lance wasn’t in danger anymore.

An apprehensive breath.

“What happened when I was out?”

Keith stared at the floor and swallowed thickly. Fuck, he knew this was coming. He started fiddling with the mat.

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Um. You, carrying me down the halls in that base. I, er, think you asked me if I was ok? And I said no? Then, nothing. Um, sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Keith replied reflexively. “Well, after that I carried you to my lion, where we caught up Allura and Coran, who also told us that he’d identified the poison, that we didn’t have an antidote nearby, and that you had about three to six hours left.” The ‘to live’ hung between them like the condensation from the hot water.

“I ran you to the med bay, they plugged you into so much stuff, and Pidge told us- um, me and Shiro- that they were gonna put you in a pod with Allura making sure you stayed, uh, alive. With her weird, like, magic thing, y’know. And Pidge, Hunk and Coran analysed the poison or something, invented an antidote and made it, don’t ask me how.” Here he breathed out a laugh. Lance pulled the towel over the door and slowly began drying himself, avoiding his left side.

“But then- we had to get you out of the pod to get the antidote in your system, and Allura said you were fine, and were fighting, which was good- but, when we got you out, you-” Keith stopped. Lance heard him swallow, and knew without looking that Keith was scrunching his eyes up. He was about to tie the towel around his waist and open the door, but Keith’s next words froze him in his tracks.

“When we got you out, after the painkiller things from the pod wore off, you know, they take like five seconds, you just- started screaming. And then they were plugging you back into things, and you wouldn’t stop, and then- then Pidge did something and you stopped, but you- you were still breathing weird, like, ragged, and they were giving you the antidote thing, and it said it was working, but you were obviously still in pain, and- then Allura did her glow-y hand thing, and _her_ face looked painful when she was like, in your mindscape or something- and I couldn’t imagine what it was like for _you_ in that moment. And I-” At this point Lance was already tying his towel, putting the shampoo back on the rack so he wouldn’t slip on it, but Keith carried on-

“I just, cried. Shiro held me the whole time, and he tried to take me out of the room but- I couldn’t. Hunk was definitely crying, I think Coran was. I think everyone was eventually. You actually, full-on- spasmed- at one point and it was- it was unbearable. I thought Pidge would have to tie you down. It was _horrible_.”

Suddenly, Keith was enveloped by Lance’s slightly damp arms. He hadn’t realised Lance had gotten out of the shower already, and he hadn’t realised his own face was soaked, not from the condensation.

And he just cried into Lance’s bare shoulder as the latter held him close, promising he’d never do it again, tears mingling with water from the shower.

 

If anyone noticed Keith’s eyes were still red and he was a bit too close to Lance when they were eating, nobody said anything.

The food was delicious though.

 


	2. 2.2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > Turns out, the galra had been using this planet to test new sentries, including ones that fought better and had better armour. They also self-destructed to destroy more of the opposition if needed.
>> 
>> They’d discovered this when one fell at Hunk’s feet and blew up.
>> 
>> The explosion had been relatively small, but Hunk had passed out.
>> 
>> And lost half a leg.  
> 
> 
> The team need to destroy a base to free a planet, but things go wrong (ft. Lance reflecting on some important moments in his relationship with Keith). 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao hey look who’s updating!!!!!  
> I haven’t had wifi for like 5 days so I used the time to write so here we are :)  
> if anyone here follows tnns, I’ve been,,,,, reconsidering a whole lot after seeing season 7,,,,,, idk what to do anymore so if anyone wants to give me some Advice pls do ;-;  
> also yesterday I got results back for my gcses and I didn’t fail anything (not even chemistry which I h a t e d) so yay!! but also school starts soon so updates for anything will be even slower than before I’m Sorry  
> anyway tysm for the kudos :’) onwards!!!
> 
> **trigger warnings for descriptions of a major injury and mentions of disassociation**

Attack the control base, they said.

It’ll be easy, they said.

Actually, no-one said it would be easy. But no-one said it would be hard, either.

Either way, it was very hard.

Lance recapped the situation in his head, more to try and calm his own panic than anything else.

When they had looked at this planet, it seemed simple enough to free. Disable the main base, the rest would go down. Most of the galra here were sentries, and the more important generals had tried to run away when they saw the Castle of Lions- and had been promptly shot down by either said Castle or the lions themselves. They had touched down and attacked the base, as per usual.

Except, the sentries here were far more advanced than any they’d previously seen.

Turns out, the galra had been using this planet to test new sentries, including ones that fought better and had better armour. They also self-destructed to destroy more of the opposition if needed.

They’d discovered this when one fell at Hunk’s feet and blew up.

The explosion had been relatively small, but Hunk had passed out.

And lost half a leg.

Lance quickly shook that image out of his head. Allura had come down straight away to bring Hunk back to the Castle, he’d be fine. Lance had wanted to go too, but a hand on his elbow, clad in red armour, had stopped him.

Now, he and Keith were trying to stop these ultra-sentries, as he was calling them, from getting to the main power router in the centre of the room they were in. Stupidly enough, the thing was on top of a lethal drop, and the bridges leading to it had no barriers. You would have thought they’d have safety regulations in space.

Pidge, in her routine intel scan, picked up on some possible information on Matt, so she’d run off to find the computer with the most access as soon as she could. Shiro had obviously gone with her, leaving Lance and Keith to protect this damn thing.

It was extra stupid, Lance thought, because the sentries wouldn’t even be going for this precarious thing if Pidge wasn’t trying to download everything she could find on Matt. Somehow, the robots knew that by shutting down the entire system- from within- it would stop Pidge from getting information.

But Lance couldn’t blame her. He missed his family too, and _he_ knew they were most likely all ok. Unlike Pidge.

“Lance! Your left!” Keith’s voice took him fully back into the present. He turned to shoot the robot.

“Fuck- thanks!”

Keith didn’t reply, first because he was still fighting, second because he was narrowly dodging a bullet which sent his jet pack sparking, and third because suddenly, a deafening scream rose above all the other noises in the comms.

Lance froze.

It was Hunk.

He could vaguely hear Allura talking very fast to Coran, and maybe that was Shiro telling Pidge to set up another channel? Lance’s head was spinning and suddenly he realised it wasn’t just from the shock, it was because he’d gotten distracted and the sentries were surrounding him and one of them had hit him in the head-

Keith came crashing through, slicing up sentries left and right.

“ _Lance!_ ” He shouted. “Turn them off!”

Acting on instinct- which apparently meant listening to Keith- Lance reached up and turned off his comms. He soon realised just how many sentries there were and just how close he and Keith were to the end- and edge- of the bridge.

“Fuck,” he breathed.

“Yep,” Keith agreed from right next to him.

They were practically fighting back to back, and Lance kept on having to snipe sentries which somehow got past and started making a dash for the control panel. Even worse, they were back to back to each other, but nothing else. The lethal void yawned not even two steps behind them.

“We need an escape plan.” Lance said, still shooting sentries.

“What? No, we need to protect this stupid thing.”

“Yes, but we’re gonna die at this rate. And if you fall, you can’t jet pack to safety- it’s been shot to pieces.”

“Fuck, I forgot about that.”

“Yeah, exactly. Wait, I’ve got a plan...”

Keith glanced up at him, questioning, as he slashed through a sentry’s head.

Lance switched up his shooting to free his left hand, which reached into the compartment on his leg and pulled out an orb, coloured like the Castle. Keith recognised it immediately.

“A bomb? How’s that going to-” He successfully knocked two sentries off the edge. “-help?”

“First we’ve got to attract them over there,” Lance indicated with his gun. As they slowly moved nearer to the control panel, towards where he’d pointed, Lance explained the rest of his plan.

Keith looked at him anxiously. “Ok, should we tell the others?”

Lance winced. “Uh, can you? I can’t hear-”

“I know. It’s fine,” Keith interrupted, already activating comms vocally. Lance barely heard him talking to Shiro over the sound of a laser scraping the side of his helmet.

“You ready?” Lance asked.

A beat of silence. Except the fighting sounds, of course. Those were permanent. “Yeah.”

“Ok, three, two, one- now!” Quickly, Lance bent down and clicked the bomb onto the ground, simultaneously pressing the five-second countdown button. He made eye contact with Keith.

They jumped off the bridge.

The adrenaline rush hit Lance like a wall as the air flew past his head. In a split second his bayard had disappeared and his jet pack was boosting him over to Keith.

Keith looked adorable, if terrified. His hair, still in his helmet, was flying around, and he had to spin around because he’d started falling on his back. Lance laughed quietly.

When he reached Keith, he turned off his jet pack and grabbed his hands. As he did, the bomb exploded and they both looked up instinctively to see sentries backtracking, as well as debris falling.

Lance’s eyes widened.

Suddenly, he grabbed Keith around the waist, pulling him in close, and activated his jet pack to avoid the pieces of bridge falling down. As Lance hovered, Keith reached up and clung onto Lance’s neck, for safety reasons of course.

“Now where?” He asked. No, his voice didn’t wobble.

“Hm. I don’t know,” Lance replied, turning his jet pack off and letting them fall.

“What the fuck are you doing?!” Keith almost-screamed, bringing his legs up to full-on panda hug his boyfriend.

Lance simply chuckled. “These don’t last forever, remember!” He shouted. “Come on, think of a way out so I know where to go!”

Keith stared at Lance, panicked. Lance was wearing his easy smile, the ‘I have no cares in the world’ smile. His eyes, though, seemed to lean more towards ‘I believe in you’ with a hint of ‘I love you’.

Keith knotted his eyebrows and looked up and around at the rapidly moving inside of the base. Then, he spotted it.

“There!” He shouted, pointing. Lance looked where he was pointing and boosted his jet pack again.

“A ventilation shaft! Well spotted!” He beamed at Keith.

Sometimes Keith wondered whether Lance actually knew exactly what was going on and had a plan at all moments, but let other people work it out just so he could compliment them. It seemed like a Lance thing to do.

They flew into the shaft, Keith still clinging to Lance with all his limbs, knowing it would come out at the surface. It twisted and turned, and after a solid ten seconds Keith buried his head in Lance’s neck to avoid having to see where they were going. The whole time he was marvelling at Lance’s flying skills, being able to make all the turns barely pausing, even with another person hindering him.

Eventually, they made it out.

Keith turned his comms on again to alert Shiro of their position, still clinging to Lance even as his jet pack sputtered and they gently landed on the grey-blue of the planet’s surface, feet first. He noticed Lance close his eyes and frown, concentrating, as Keith unwound himself from around the other boy.

“Shiro said Pidge’s got all the data she can find, and they’re leaving too now. He thinks we should attack the base with our lions instead, and then we can go,” Keith explained, clicking his comms off again. “Pidge’s sent us a map with their locations so we don’t hurt them by accident.”

“Good,” Lance smiled. “I’ve already called Blue, she’s probably told Red to come too.”

Keith just nodded as he checked the atmosphere readings. Not much nitrogen, but plenty of oxygen, and no extremely toxic gases- good. He carefully released his helmet from his suit and lifted it off, seeing Lance do the same in front of him.

Once his head was free, Lance tipped his face towards the sky, exhaling slowly. Keith tucked his helmet under an arm and reached out to put his other hand on Lance’s shoulder. A simple act, really, though it spoke volumes.

“I know it’s been tough, but he’ll be ok. He’s strong,” Keith reassured him, already knowing what Lance was worried about the most at that moment.

“I know,” Lance replied. “Just- ugh- I wish I could do more, y’know? He’s up there- going through who knows what- fuck-” He scrunched up his face more and more with each word, until Keith dropped his helmet to use both arms to cradle Lance’s head into his neck. Lance, of course, fully accepted this and brought his arms up to drape himself over Keith.

They stood like that in silence for a few seconds, Keith running his hands through his boyfriend’s short hair, until Lance swiped a stray tear off its course with the back of his glove.

“Thanks,” he mumbled. “I know I’ve been a bit much, with the stabbing last month and then the other day, with all the homesickness-”

“It’s fine,” Keith interrupted, still carding his hand through Lance’s hair. “It’s not like any of it’s your fault, and even so, I know you’d do all of this for me- just let me do it for you, okay?”

Lance pouted into Keith’s shoulder, gaze firmly away from him. “Lance, okay?”

“Okay,” he leant back to look at Keith. “Thanks.”

“Anyti-”

It started as bit of a forceful kiss, Lance quickly finding Keith’s waist and pulling him closer despite the suits, but it soon melted into a soft, blissful array of small kisses which began to stray from their lips. Keith giggled a little when Lance kissed under his jaw, the latter smiling against the skin there at the sound.

Just as Keith was about to return the favour, tilting Lance’s head up slightly, a pair of loud roars froze him in his tracks. The two of them turned to see their lions, waiting for them to get in. Lance got the vague feeling neither of them were actually disapproving of him and Keith, just impatient.

“Well, duty calls, I guess,” Lance sighed, going to pick up his helmet. Keith frowned and quickly pecked him on the lips before doing the same.

“This isn’t over,” he said, gesturing to the air between them with two hands. Lance laughed at how serious he looked.

“As if I wanted it to be!”

Soon enough, they were both in the air. Though Keith didn’t stop talking and updating Shiro, Lance’s comms stayed off the whole time- if he heard one thing from or about Hunk, he was sure he’d go into a downwards spiral, mentally and physically in his lion. He felt terrible about it, but Keith had reassured him that if it helped Lance complete the mission quicker, it would bring him back to Hunk quicker.

The problem with being in silence inside a semi-sentient mechanical lion mentally linked to you was that there was lots of time to think, and all those thoughts were immediately read by said lion.

First, Lance saw Hunk, passed out and covered in way too much blood, on the ground in front of him, just like at the start of this mission. Blue quickly put a metaphorical- or mental, who knew anymore- paw over the image, stopping that train of thought before it left the station. Instead, Lance’s mind went where it loved to go.

Keith.

(Blue was definitely guiding his thoughts in this direction, probably as a distraction, but it’s not like Lance was going to reject it.)

He remembered their first proper conversation about their relationship- when they’d decided to keep it a secret. He remembered the observatory he’d stumbled across the day before, and how he’d led Keith to it, dodging the others. He remembered Keith letting him lean on his shoulder-

_“I feel like they all think it’s a joke- all my romantic stuff. I mean, yeah, most of the time I get no response- but it feels- I feel like I’ve made this image of myself, where all my romantic relationships have failed, and all my attempts- like with Nyma- and I don’t want everyone being like ‘oh no, when’s Lance gonna mess this up and rip Voltron apart’ around us. You- um- do you get what I mean?”_

_“Yeah. But I don’t think they’ll think that. They know you, they know you don’t mess up serious stuff- wait, fuck, you’re ok with this being serious right?”_

_“Yes, of course- oh my god please-”_

_“Sorry, I’ve never really done it like this- anyway- uh- they know you’re not terrible at everything, well, in my opinion, you’re not terrible at anything- shut up- and as long as they know you’re- we’re serious it’s ok, no?”_

_“I guess... but still, I can’t just- delete those thoughts, you know?”_

_“...yeah, I know.”_

_“...”_

_“...”_

_“Also, I have a bad feeling if we do tell anyone, Allura might try to break us up-”_

_“What?”_

_“-and I really don’t wanna go through that. Like, ever.”_

_“Uh, why would she break us up?”_

_“You know, ‘what if you break up in the future and it tears Voltron apart?’, that kind of thing. Allura’s great and all, but- well, to me anyway- she’s always fixated on Voltron, Voltron, Voltron. I mean, I get it, last part of her father’s legacy, but that just makes it more believable for her to try to break us up.”_

_“Oh God, I would hate to see that. Shiro would take her side too- God. Yeah, I totally see your point.”_

_“...”_

_“Shit, we’d also get the talk from Shiro-”_

_“Oh my God, no-”_

_“-he’d definitely tell me to ‘be careful, Lance is a good boy but you never know’-”_

_“What the fuck? Has he done that before?”_

_“...he’s told me ‘that guy’s not good enough for you’ way more times.”_

_“Oh my God- I can imagine it- you- with your new boyfriend- and Shiro- fucking- looking at you- with that judgemental look- fuck- you know the one-”_

_“Shut uuuuup! Stop laughing, Lance!”_

Lance smiled to himself at the memory, and he subconsciously felt his lion smile with him, if that was possible. He swerved to dodge the ion cannon mounted on top of the base, then went in to damage it as it charged up again. In the corner of his eye, he saw Keith take out three of the smaller cannons. _We’re definitely gonna need backup_ , Lance thought, just as two dots, one purple, one green, blinked into life on the locator. Fuck, he hated this base.

Fuck, he hated Zarkon.

Lance clearly remembered the first time Keith had brought up telling the others, and it was, though indirectly, because of Zarkon. He remembered how the mission to save the Zailians’ planet hadn’t been going very well anyway, what with the asteroids being pulled out of the nearby belt by the planet itself, but then the Galra they were trying to chase away called for backup. Turned out, the nearest backup was the biggest fleet any of them had seen. There had been ten ion cannons to destroy.

Miraculously, they’d managed, but only just- Pidge had had to create a crazy virus on the spot and remotely hack the fleet, and that had been their only plan. When they’d returned to the Castle, there’d been celebration, of course, but also this- _thing_ \- over them all, a reminder they all could have actually died that day. Later, when Keith had already kissed Lance senseless, Lance remembered the conversation they’d had on his bed-

_“I think we should tell them.”_

_“What? ...why?”_

_“That mission went downhill so fast, Lance. What if that happens again, what if the next time we’re not so lucky? What- what if next time, I don’t get to see you again? Or- or something happens to me? What then?”_

_“...I- I don’t know- without you? I don’t- can’t-”_

_“If we tell them, we can at least enjoy what we have, right? We could have fun and do stuff like- like this, way more often- and if something does happen-”_

_“Please don’t finish that sentence.”_

_“...sorry.”_

_“-it’s fine.”_

_“What do you think?”_

_“I dunno, Keith- I- it’s like I have this- being next to me that’s telling me, like- ‘they’ll judge you, Allura will split you’- and I- I don’t want this to be over. I can’t tell them, I’m sorry-”_

_“Why? Lance, just think-”_

_“I have-”_

_“-everything could be better-”_

_“Or it could be worse! That’s the thing, we don’t know- and I cannot deal with a rejection of- of us.”_

_“...or maybe you’re just ashamed.”_

_“What? Keith-”_

_“You have the whole rivals persona, and you just can’t let it go._ God _, Lance-”_

_“Keith, that’s ridiculous and you know it-”_

_“Do I?”_

_“-I would never be ashamed of you, Keith- God- I- look, uh, I-”_

_“You what, Lance?”_

_“...”_

_“...Lance?”_

_“I- I love you.”_

_“...”_

_“I could never be ashamed of you, it’s not because of the fake rivalry, I- I just, um, I love you and I don’t know what I’d do if they broke us apart-”_

_“Lance.”_

_“-or, or if anything happened to you- God- and you don’t have to say it back, I know, just- it’s been there a while and I just wanted you to know-”_

_“Lance-”_

_“-fuck, I’m sorry, ok? I’m so sorry I value all these dumb opinions so much,_ mierda _how do you deal with me?”_

_“Lance, I love you too.”_

_“...oh.”_

_“Yeah, ‘_ oh _’. I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking, I shouldn’t be pushing you to do something you don’t wanna do-”_

_“It’s ok, really.”_

_“...”_

_“...we need to get better at communicating, goddamn!”_

_“Pff- yeah, we do. Come here-”_

_“I love you.”_

_“I lo-_ Lance, watch out, the ion cannon’s back online!”

“What? Already?”

Lance, and his lion, were rather roughly catapulted back into the present when Keith made an emergency comms connection- and screamed right into his ears. He flew to the left, outrunning the cannon, then doubled back and shot ice at it.

“Nice!”

Lance exhaled shakily. Right, focus, he thought to himself as a video feed of Pidge appeared on his dashboard. He absentmindedly swiped it away, looking out at the battlefield.

The rest of the battle went a lot better- now that they were in the air, the ultra-sentries were much less effective. Hunk, by some genius miracle, had done a general scan for mechanical weaknesses when they’d originally touched down on the planet, so the destruction of the base and all of its sentries was facilitated by the labelled blueprint the four of them had in their lions. After barely half a varga, they were speeding back to the Castle, Lance having turned his comms off again when he saw from Allura’s video feed that she was still in the med bay. He trusted Keith to cover him.

The second Blue’s enormous paws hit the hangar floor, Lance was bolting to the med bay. He’d successfully avoided it up until now, but that had mainly been because he couldn’t help Hunk when in a battle. Now that he could help, he wanted to see how the situation had played out and how his best friend was.

He was the first of the paladins to make it there. The first thing he laid his eyes on were the cryopods, one of which had Hunk in it. He looked peaceful, his face calm with his eyes closed. He would have looked completely normal if it weren’t for the sickly white cryo-suit, and the fact that Hunk’s right leg just above the knee was missing.

Lance spaced out a bit when he saw the gap. It looked so- _wrong_. Lance had known Hunk since they were small kids, running around, scraping their knees and laughing about it. Now Hunk only _had_ one knee.

Coran came up to Lance and put a supportive hand on his shoulder. “He’ll be okay. That device I’ve attached at the stump will make sure of it.” He smiled, warm and comforting. “His vitals have been stable for a while, we’ve just got to wait now! He’ll be there for about an Earth week of yours, I’d say.”

“Okay,” Lance replied shakily, trying to return Coran’s kindly smile but instead contorting his face into the living representation of anxiety.

The older man sighed quietly. “I know I can’t stop you worrying, Lance, but I’m one hundred percent certain he’ll be fine, we-”

Lance interrupted without realising- “I trust you, Coran, I just- I wish I could have done something more, y’know?” He stepped towards Hunk’s cryopod, collapsing to the floor, armour and all, before it. He almost said something else, but decided against it at the last second and shut his mouth, trying to take his eyes off the still figure in front of him and failing.

Coran sat next to him. “You can still do something- when he comes out, in a week, I’m sure he’ll be very disorientated, at least,” Lance could hear the other things the Altean was suggesting between his words and his face scrunched in worry a shade more. “And you can be there for him,” Coran continued, “I’m sure he’d like that a lot.”

“Yeah,” Lance said quietly, the start of a paragraph he’d never say.

At that moment, the rest of them team entered the med bay. Allura cast a look at Coran as the latter stood up again, exchanging silent words. Lance heard Pidge’s soft gasp next and above him, the only warning she was even there before she joined him on the floor, falling sideways into him. His arm automatically wrapped itself around her waist, pulling her closer in a half-hug as she sniffled.

Somewhere far away, right behind Lance, Coran was explaining what he’d done and repeating that Hunk would be fine and out in a week. Lance could feel himself disassociating, glass forming between him and the people around him. He was trying desperately not to cry, vaguely aware that Pidge was quietly crying to his right, which set off his older brother instincts. Still staring at Hunk’s cryopod, Lance began rubbing Pidge’s side reassuringly, almost absentmindedly.

He felt like he was teetering on the edge of a cliff, still hugging Pidge, when Keith finally sat down on his other side. He wound his arm around Lance’s waist, leaning his head on his shoulder softly and glancing up at his worried face. Lance gently pulled Keith closer with his left arm and dropped his head on top to make a kind of head-pile. Lance tried hard to think about this weird concept instead of the missing leg in front of him.

 

Pidge was the first to leave. Well, technically, Coran, Allura and Shiro left the med bay ages ago, but they’d been so quiet about it Lance sometimes thought he could still hear them talking in undertones behind the trio on the floor. Pidge left first because Pidge can’t think about nothing- she deals with things by working. Lance had often had to force her to stop so she wouldn’t overwork herself, not sleeping for three days in a row.

So Pidge got up, giving a last look to Hunk, then to Lance and Keith, still cuddling. Somewhere in her hyperactive mind she thought about Lance and Keith’s bickering and how different it was to this display in front of her, but it was only a background thought. Lance looked up at her and offered a small, pained smile.

She returned it, then a particular thought hit her. Her plan had been to fiddle around with the Rover replacements she’d been working on as a distraction, but this new idea was a lot better. Lance’s eyebrow cocked at the change in expression on Pidge’s face; she was staring at a specific point on the floor with a distinctly Pidge-like set of determination.

She shifted her gaze back up to Lance, noticing vaguely that Keith had his eyes on her too now, answering his cocked eyebrow.

“I’m going to build a prosthetic.”

Lance’s face cleared and he smiled widely. A smaller smile tugged at Keith’s lips behind him.

“He’ll love it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> honestly I’m disappointed in the voltron writers that they didn’t get pidge to build shiros new arm
> 
> anyway uh I was serious pls help my dilemma regarding the new nerd squad:  
> I rly like chatfics n writing chatfics but s7 changed some things that I had planned for tnns,, there was adashi (I wanna write them happy now bc That!! broke my heart!!!) when I’ve got shalluratt in tnns, they set up acxa x Keith (I hate it sm I hate it sm oh my goddd) when I my fic,,, I kinda wrote in the old acxa n Keith are siblings theory/headcanon, and I’m s7 they also set up allurance (I mean,, klance would be better tyvm) and the age gap in tnns makes that a bit weird :/ also s8 is due to be the last season and I think I read somewhere it’ll be out in autumn 2018?? and we all know the voltron fandoms gonna die out once there’s no more content, and my slow updates will never finish the massive fic arcs I had planned (initially I wanted to do year 12 /and/ 13 but theres no way I can do that anymore lmao). idk whether I should:  
> -carry on as I am and pretend everything’s ok  
> -completely restart and adjust my arcs to fit with canon  
> -completely restart, but plan it so it’s shorter (and would hopefully be completed before the fandom dies/season 8 drops)  
> -just drop the chatfic bc I’ll never be able to finish a chatfic that quickly (I’m also starting a new school this year so yayyyyy)  
> lmao any advice yall??
> 
>  **anyway thanks in advance for any advice** , thanks again for the kudos, comments etc every email adds to my will to live, see yall in the next one whatever it is (I started a oneshot so that might be it?? but let’s jot push it lol) and whenever it is (it’ll be ages bc I’m veeeeeeeery busy for at least the next 2 weeks kms) bye :P

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on [tumblr](https://pwgnbaf.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
